The time has come when o’dark thirty loiters incessantly around your doorstep at the hours well before 6:00, leaving you in an absolute panic that you are, in fact, not yet neck-deep under the covers with the dishwasher timer set, the sound machine chumming, and the Rodan & Fields smothered in excess all about your face. You’re frantic rushing off to inhale one hot chicken nugget in between practices before you can head off to that euphoric land where gravity trumps eyelids and your toddler’s temper tantrums are only reality in nightmares that can be soothed with a good ole drink of water and a body pillow turn.
Dailylight savings. Ahhh, yes. You do know just how to turn the marble jar upside down.
Lest we forget the holidays are upon us. For me, Halloween is behind us me. I’m finding it in all sorts of way. On.my.behind. There’s jubilance laced with traces of anxiety pill tops popping as people begin their journey to find just the right gift, not to mention, the right parking place, the right cornbread dressing recipe, too.
It’s the human of us, really. Intentions aren’t rubbing their hands together with delight over this tilt-a-whirl of our time here on this Earth.
The older I get, the more the clichés are true. I am slapping the wrists of my twenty-something self of yesteryear when Halloween candy did not know the locale of my backside, and Rodan & Fields wasn’t even a product on the market. Those catchy phrases that pertain to enjoying the storm and living for the moment are all up in my face now in my forties. In so many words, they’re true. Yes, even the YOLO one.
So I’m here to remind you. I’m here to be that great Instagram stop-n-like in your feed. In this at-your-fingertips and on demand world we live in, I’m simply asking that you take note of the hustle and find the time to laugh. Why? Because this world is busy. And our plates are full. Emptying them is a novel idea; alas, we have social security cards and electricity bills due on the 4th, but you get until the 14th before the late fee occurs. Just sayin’.
We’re real. We’re people. We’re meant to move and ache, and long to feel pulled to be under the covers at 5:51. We want the Twix; we will steal them from our child’s Halloween buckets. Backside living is marginal, confined, and just not functional in this Mom life.
My request?
A beautiful life is one where the beautiful laugh is.
I’m here to report that laughter amongst the twisty turns and those uncertain certainties efforts you to a better place. It brings you a joy in the jumble of us all piled up on this globe.
Leaning into this article, I make my stand for the smile and the belly laugh:
Laughter is good for your health.
Laughter relaxes the whole body.
Laughter boosts the immune system.
Laughter triggers the release of endorphins.
Laughter protects the heart.
Laughter burns calories.
Laughter lightens anger’s heavy load.
Laughter may even help you to live longer.
I’m also a real big fan of this read for the giggle win, too.
